“When Jerry Springer briefly visited the UK to
make a British version of his show, he was reportedly astonished by the amount
of foul language he heard…There is an old joke about an English tourist asking a
New York taxi-driver, ‘Excuse me, can you tell me the way to Carnegie Hall, or
shall I just go and Eff myself?’ Nowadays the joke works better with an American
asking the way to Picadilly Circus.” –
British author Lynne Truss, in her
book Talk to the Hand

Ms. Truss’ acerbic observation is more than borne
out by one of the latest television imports from Britain, the unbelievably foul
teenage soap opera Skins.

First shown on the British pay-TV channel E4 last
year, Skins is carried by the BBC America network in the U.S. BBC is
included on Direc TV’s basic-level “Choice” package and Dish Network’s
“America’s Top 200” expanded basic package, as well as on many expanded basic
cable TV packages – meaning that millions of Americans are forced to pay for the
show.

But the program is of concern not only because
many American satellite and cable subscribers are required to subsidize it;
rather, it is the show’s rancid content which should cause every parent who
receives BBC America to look into blocking the channel.

The PTC has frequently warned parents about the
content on such American-made teen-targeted programs as the CW network’s
Gossip Girl and its new 90210. These programs are glorify teens
drinking, smoking marijuana and having sex, both with adults and with one
another; but contrasted with their overseas counterpart Skins, they
appear almost tame.

Skins
(the word is slang for the papers used to roll marijuana “joints”) follows the
lives of a group of teenagers in the British city of Bristol. Main characters
include the manipulative Tony, his girlfriend Michelle, Tony’s friend Sid (who
is secretly infatuated with Michelle), the Muslim Anwar and his gay friend
Maxxie, and the party-hardy Chris, who is having sex with his teacher. In just
the last two episodes to air on BBC America, viewers were bombarded with
overwhelming amounts of profanity, drug references, and scenes of teens having
sex.

On the September 7th episode airing at
10:00 p.m. ET, loser Sid, who is failing his classes at school, encounters
Maxxie and Anwar, who urge him to skip class and do drugs instead in the
following scintillating dialogue:

Maxxie: “F*** that. Why don't you go to the
green and get stoned instead?...F*** it.”

Sid: “I gotta go to this lesson.”

Maxxie: “F*** it, man.”

Sid: “F*** it?”

Anwar: “F*** it.”

Though the f-words are muted for American
broadcast, they were not in the original British broadcasts; nor is any effort
made to disguise what is being said. But failing grades, drugs and profanity are
far from the only things on Sid’s mind. Later, viewers see Sid masturbating in
bed, as he gazes at a photo of Tony's girlfriend Michelle. Pictures of topless
women – some blurred, some not – cover the walls, and a bong is seen on Sid’s
bedside table. As Sid pleasures himself, Tony walks in and notices the picture
of his girlfriend, and the use to which Sid is putting it. Naturally, living in
the Skins universe, Tony is not at all disturbed by seeing his friend masturbate
to a picture of Tony’s own girlfriend, only remarking, “Is that a picture of my
girlfriend? Wondered where that went.”

But even more is depressing Sid. While many teens
undergo rough spots in their relationship with their parents, most do not see
the level of antipathy shown between Sid and his father. When Sid arrives home
bloodied and bruised from being assaulted after a night of drinking, he is
lovingly greeted by his father:

Sid's father: “Where the f*** have you
been?...What's that smell?”

Sid: “Piss.”

Sid's father: “Yours?”

Sid: “Someone else's.”

Sid's father: “You snuck out. You even did a
half-assed job of that.”

Sid: “Dad, you're such a...”

Sid's father: “Such a what? Such a f****** what?
Such a f****** what?”

Sid: “Dildo.”

Sid's mother smirks.

Sid's father: “F*** the pair of you!”

Later in the episode, Sid's father tells Sid that
his mother has left them.

Sid: “My dad thinks I'm a complete f***-up and
can't stop acting like a f***- up, and no matter what I try I can't
stop pissing everyone off.”

Teacher: “Do your f****** coursework Sid, or else
you’re f*****.”

But Sid is only one member of the crushingly
depressing teen ensemble at the center of Skins. At a live stage show,
Michelle bursts into a dressing room, to find her boyfriend Tony fondling a Posh
Girl’s breasts.

Michelle: “F*** off! I don't want to speak to you
wankers... I can't take your s***... You both f***** me over!”

Remember: all of the above occurred in only ONE
episode of the teen-targeted program. Lest such content be dismissed as an
anomaly, let us examine the next episode, from September 14th at
10:00 p.m. ET (only 9:00 p.m. Sunday night in the Central and Mountain time
zones). That episode found the fun-filled Skins gang on a
school-sponsored field trip to Russia. The hapless Sid has been charged with
smuggling drugs past the Russian authorities, with Tony being quick to get to
the bottom of matters:

Chris: “Where'd you hide the drugs then?”

Anwar: “I don't have any. I thought you were
bringing ‘em.”

Tony: “Don't panic boys. I've got a back-up
plan.”

Maxxie: “Not up his ass?”

Later, Sid expresses his frustration at being
unable to “move” the drugs.

Sid: “I pushed and pushed but still nothing.”

Tony: “What the f*** are we gonna do here without
any drugs?”

Among other travails in the episode, Tony
expresses interest in having sex with the gay Maxxie, while Anwar is concerned
about being in the same room with Maxxie when he has sex. Idly looking through
Maxxie's sketchbook and seeing a close-up drawing of a penis, Anwar checks his own penis, thinking this
is a sketch of his genitals. Anwar then walks over to the window and sees a
young, sexily-dressed Russian woman. Anwar ogles various parts of her body,
while trying to decide whether to tell his friends about the woman immediately
or masturbate first: “Wank or tell group?...Wank or tell group?” Ultimately,
Anwar brings the Russian girl, Anka, back to his room, and seduces her tenderly:

But Anwar is not the only one to enjoy sex with
an older woman on his school field trip. After repulsing a fellow adult
teacher’s advances, schoolteacher Angie grabs teenage student Chris, kisses him
and proceeds to have vigorous sex with him. Afterward, she remarks:

Angie: “Chris, this was a one-off. I don't have
sex with my 17-year-old students…And you do know that this can never ever happen
again.”

After this mature statement, teacher Angie
immediately jumps on top of Chris and starts kissing him, and they have sex
again. In a world where all too many teenage boys have recently been sexually
assaulted by adult woman teachers, such a portrayal is irresponsible at best.

Yet this is what passes, not only for
entertainment, but for realism among the international entertainment industry.
The show’s creators claim that Skins is representative of most average
teens’ everyday lives; but even Skins’ producer, while praising the show
for being"edgy, funny and rude," has stated that she is unsure whether
the show is appropriate for teens.

In spite of this fact – or perhaps because of it
-- in its short life Skins has been heaped with awards. Demonstrating
that British critics and “creative” personnel are as out-of-touch with real life
and parental concerns as their American counterparts, Skins was nominated
for British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards (equivalent to the
American Emmys) for Best Drama and Break-Thru Talent, and won for Best Title
Sequence. Skins was also given the prestigious Europe-wide Rose d’Or
award for Best Drama in 2008. And the program has earned another
mark of fame: the drama has become so popular in Britain that any occasion
involving heavy drinking and recreational drug use is now referred to among
teens as a “Skins party.”

In the earliest days of the American republic,
the nation’s Founders took pride in the fact that the United States were not
like Europe, which they saw a victim to its own moral turpitude and decadence.
Unfortunately, today Hollywood’s so-called “creative” personnel have rejected
the Founders’ passion for rectitude, and instead consider Europe a model of
“progress.” Be it ever so depraved, if Europeans are doing it, then American
entertainment, they feel, should and must follow suit.

And that is the real danger of Skins.
Historically, British programming has had a
tremendous influence on American television. Many hugely important and
popular American programs, from All in the Family and Sanford and Son
to Three’s Company, were inspired by British programs with similar
premises. American television has already begun glamorizing teen drug use and
promiscuous sex; but now, with the added cachet of an award-winning British
program to point to as a model (and from which to draw additional examples of
horrific teen behavior), American programs aimed at teens, bad as they are, may
see an exponential increase in explicit content…which will, in turn, lead to far
greater parental concern, and potentially, to far greater problems for teens who
see such programs as worthy of emulation.

TV Trends:
This column was compiled from reports by the Parents
Television Council’s Analysis staff.

Parents Television Council,
www.parentstv.org, PTC,
Clean Up TV Now, Because our children are watching, The
nation's most influential advocacy organization, Protecting
children against sex, violence and profanity in
entertainment, Parents Television Council Seal of Approval,
and Family Guide to Prime Time Television
are trademarks of the Parents Television Council.